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It’s a quietly bright day in Seattle after days of blazing golden sunshine. We are back to our silver-toned sky with patches of blue showing through, promising to clear up for our Seafair Fireworks Celebration. The display starts at 10:15 p.m. tonight in Gas Works Park, but we’ll be viewing it from our third-floor balcony in Ballard with friends and family gathering for a little viewing party. Hope your 4th is fantastic and a great kick-off to July!

Some of the events you won’t want to miss this month center around our fantastic annual Seafair, and the Ballard Seafood Festival is so popular that everyone I talked to yesterday is going! Coincidence or trend… I’m going to swing out and declare it a trend, in our corner of the globe! This is the 39th annual Ballard Seafood Fest and it’s being held Saturday and Sunday, July 13th and 14th, in the heart of downtown Ballard. That’s walking distance from our place, so for those who know me reading this, why not come by and we’ll explore it together? Email me and we’ll connect. The festival is free but of course there will be plenty of seafood treats to buy, both to eat there and to take home. There’s also “great music, local brews, kids’ activities, and quality arts and crafts.”

As for housing news, check out this article about Consumer Confidence in Home Value skyrocketing…

Reports of strong home price gains drove confidence in the housing market up to record levels in May, Fannie Mae reported. According to the GSE’s May 2013 National Housing Survey, Americans expressed record confidence in price gains, with 55 percent—a survey high—saying they believe prices will go up in the next year. Only 7 percent of respondents in the survey expect prices to drop, the lowest level since the survey’s inception. Read more here…

On some nearby neighborhoods, homes that came on the market in Ballard this spring sold in a record average of 18 days, in Queen Anne it was 43 days.

Early evening, still light, quiet tree-lined streets in Old Town Ballard hold a still promise of the dinner hour. Lights from the restaurants, pubs, and wine cafes glow over wooden tables set artfully on old wooden floors, windows gleam with un-looked for bits and pieces of the past, and reflect trees, leaves, branches, telephone poles, passing couples strolling toward their favorite Old Town cafe. It’s about friends, conversation, a timeless walk letting the soft evening light and the greenery and old brick and wood surfaces sink in below the level of daily life to the place we keep those special moments.

The Seattle folks living in Ballard think of themselves more as Ballardites than Seattleites. It is an urban village with so much character and charm and arguably some of the best restaurants, drinking places, and shops in the city, that people rarely need to go anywhere else to eat, go to the movies, shop, ride their bikes, or go out for live music and socializing. Even the Tuesday after Memorial Day a rusty girl’s voice drifts out over a guitar rift from an open door, couples sit over starkly elegant drinks at Bitterroot, and the Noble Fir is as usual absolutely packed with couples at tables with white clothes.

What could one possible want that is not here? There is even a new hotel (Hotel Ballard) on Ballard Ave, giving the Ballard Inn (always my favorite with the air of docks and yesteryear) some competition and worth staying at no matter where in the city your destination lies.

The Ballard Inn lists some of the best things to do, and I strongly recommend you allow plenty of time to enjoy yourself in this, perhaps the best Seattle destination to unwind and live timelessly, for however long you are here. (For information on Ballard real estate and homes and condos for sale in Ballard please click here to go to my blog on the current Ballard market, or for an in-depth look at a superb Gelato spot on Ballard Ave, check out my blog on D’Ambrosio Gelato.)

A couple of hours to fill on a quiet evening right after Memorial Day. It’s a serious holiday with a lot of remembrance and giving thanks for those who have gone before, sacrificed, left us so much. Now in the aftermath of that day of contemplation and an almost dreamy looking back quality, what could be better than to head to Old Ballard. Ballard Ave seems nothing so much as a street cloaked in 100 years of brick and old wood history. The shops and restaurants are in premium space, so only the best prevail, and perhaps like New York, San Francisco, or some premier European cities, Ballard is most enjoyable because it is so very much itself. Granted it may be smaller than some of its illustrious cousins mentioned above, but there is so much per square foot that you will never see it all in one day and you will never tire of it. Most people that live nearby possessively treasure the Ballard Sunday Market and the surrounding old brick and wood buildings with their gold leaf signed windows and the leafy reflections that seem to cast shadows of the past onto our day. Mornings the streets are quiet but many arrive in search of the bountiful brunch spreads that the local eateries are renowned for. Afternoon brings shoppers and fresh diners. And toward evening, the dinner hour begins with popular happy hours that tempt. And after dinner the drinking, live music, and socializing brings a lively, swirling crowd.

In among all these lovely choices for treats, we knew exactly where we were headed. My son wanted to go to D’Ambrosio Gelato which he’d been gazing at from the sidewalk last Sunday while at the Farmer’s Market. “Mom, there’s a new gelato shop, we should try it!” I didn’t have the heart to tell him it wasn’t new, it has in fact been there several years, because at 11 he’s just starting to notice so much and why not let him be a discoverer in his own right. We parked about seven blocks away but no worries, every foot of the stroll was worthwhile as there is so much to see and experience. When we got there, the friendly young man behind the counter offered us tastes before we committed ourselves to a flavor or two. I tried Caramello al Sale (salted caramel) at my son’s recommendation, and found it rich and creamy and rewarding, and then tried the Variegato Amarena (kirsch cherry) and loved it. I settled on a cup (small, to be as noble as possible) of cherry and lemonatta, a wonderful duo. Daniel chose the salted caramel and an orange cream. The server made an art piece of the mix of the two flavors. We got a fresh cannoli to take home to Dad, with a choice of filling of either traditional cream or (D’Ambrosia’s theme) pistachio cream, filled while we watched.

You are invited to taste before you make your flavor choices.Sitting in the window, slowing enjoying the creamy treat while watching the blue light in the street and the people passing, we were in no hurry to go anywhere else at all. As each couple or group came in and ordered, laughing and joking with the young man serving, the remarkable simple pleasure of the moment seemed to permiate the whole cafe and we stayed quite a while just watching the light change and hearing the murmur of voices as people spent some very quiet and somehow dreamy moments together. I’d like to keep that moment alive in my soul as the week goes forward, but it is great to know that living here in Ballard, it is quite easy to find our way back anytime we have the impulse to visit and taste the wide variety we have yet to enjoy! (For some insight on the Ballard real estate market this month and to look at some Ballard homes for sale, please go to my Ballard Real Estate Now blog.)